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Open Economies - RE: [OpenEconomies] Digital Divide bridged by Linux

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RE: [OpenEconomies] Digital Divide bridged by Linux

  • To: "'openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu'" <openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu>
  • Subject: RE: [OpenEconomies] Digital Divide bridged by Linux
  • From: "Moore, James" <jmoore(at)geopartners.com>
  • Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 06:40:08 -0500
Dear Mikael,

Given the Open Economies is a list about policy and law, can you make the
policy linkage to your posting on Linux and Open Source?  What do you think
that government officials in developing countries should do, or do
differently, given the promise of Open Source software?

For example, in China, Microsoft software predominates, and most of it is
pirated.  China is now entering the WTO, and has tightened its intellectual
property laws--and on paper.

Many argue that if China could actually enforce the laws against software
piracy, the burden of either paying for the software, or slowing diffusion
of information technology, would put a huge drag on China's national
economic and social development efforts.

On the other hand, not enforcing intellectual property laws may make it
difficult for China's own software developers and knowledge workers to
establish viable businesses.

Perhaps what China should do is simultaneously start a massive Open Source
campaign, while also launching a major effort to clean up piracy.

Over a few years, this might (1) lower the Chinese cost for foundational
software such as client and service OS and basic applications, due to the
substitution of Open Source for imported commercial software; (2) create a
highly networked community of developers and support experts--due to the
intense community-building nature of Open Source movements; (3) provide
intellectual property protection and financial incentives for Chinese
companies doing knowledge work--and thus help efforts at local economic
development.

If this macro argument makes sense to you, what do you think are the two or
three most important policy and legal actions China (or another nation,
perhaps South Africa) might take?

What do you think?

Regards, Jim


Dr. James F. Moore
Senior Fellow
Harvard Law School
Open Economies Project
Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Pound Hall 511
1563 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
 
www.openeconomies.org
jmoore@cyber.law.harvard.edu
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mikael Pawlo [mailto:mikael@pawlo.com] 
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 5:31 AM
To: openeconomies@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: [OpenEconomies] Digital Divide bridged by Linux

At 22.08 +0100 02-01-12, Mikael Pawlo wrote:
>Not much action here recently, but if you are still around, I think you
>would be interested in a story on Advogato submitted today, discussing the
>digital divide and the role of Linux:
(---)
>Read the entire story:
>http://www.advogato.org/article/411.html

I submitted the link it to Slashdot, and it has spurred quite a discussion:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/12/2239202&mode=flat

The quality of the comments is varied as always, but there are some very
interesting remarks.

Here are some of them (read Slashdot according to link above for full
quotes and attribution):

Graff:
"I work for a Boys & Girls Club in one of the more depressed cities in the
Unites States. We get tons of equipment and software donated to us from all
sorts of companies, organizations, etc. The real problem is not the cost of
the items, but rather the cost of the support and the lack of qualified
people who want to work for a non-profit.

It's all well and fine to say that Linux costs next to nothing, but it is
much harder to find people to support it. I know most places would rather
use software which cost more up front but didn't need a software guru to
set up and maintain. Sadly, we don't get the volunteer support we need to
use most of the free software out there."

Restil:
Companies that upgrade and trash their equipment rather than recycle it
back to those who use it have a wealth of hardware available that could be
used for this bridging purpose.  Even equipment that is 3-4 years old is
still useful for a linux workstations and web browsers.

Chagrin:
"The problem is that it takes a lot of employee time to clean up these old
computers for donation; time to check that everything is functional, to do
the install, etc. - perhaps two hours of time each. It turns into a costly
process that there aren't any resources to put to (any IS department is
always plenty busy). In a nutshell, if you really want to help out your
local schools, give your name to companies in your area and start arranging
the setup of this equipment yourself."

Mr Resistor:
">People who don't even have a computer would find Linux a lot harder to use
>than either of those two commercial operatings systems.

I think this is a common misconception about Linux. It's probably based on
the fact that most people who have used Linux had a hard time learning it
because they had to learn something different from what they already knew.
Everyone I've ever met who has used Linux used a different OS first. They
were already experienced computer users. When they started learning it they
discovered that most of the things they took for granted before no longer
applied, little things like hotkeys and how to cut and paste are different,
so they get frustrated and it seems harder than when they were first
learning how to use a computer. It isn't."


Regards

Mikael Pawlo

_________________________________________________________________________

  ICQ:35638414                              mailto:mikael@pawlo.com
  +46-704-215825                              http://www.pawlo.com/



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